January 22, 2009 12:24
You have this completely bass-awkwards, AC. The spec rules all, if the hardware doesn't comply then the hardware is at fault. You can't blame the software if hardware A does "X" and hardware B does "Y" when X is per the spec while Y is not. This is the kind of thinking that lead to IE not parsing web pages per the HTML standard, and led to web sites that worked well only with IE and other web sites that worked better with FireFox or Safari. You would hardly say M$ was "hiding" behind a "nebulous standard" like HTML, now would you?
As a former government engineer, I can tell you we lived and died by the spec. If the hardware didn't pass the test as per the mil spec, we didn't say "oh just accept it anyway" - we failed the hardware and sent it back. We didn't tweak the software so it would run, we didn't blame the programmer, we failed the unit. Period.
If RayMarine implemented a 'feature' that requires or restricts certain characters in a waypoint name, and that's not part of the NMEA spec then RayMarine is at fault here, not GPSNavX. If RayMarine doesn't accept valid NMEA sentences sent to it, then it's at fault. It's impossible to test against every single device out there that supports NMEA, and impossible to tweak software to accommodate all the various units out there. That's what a standard is for, and if it's not used correctly then it's not the standard's fault, it's the hardware. If there's a "gaggle" of devices out there that claim NMEA support but won't work with other NMEA devices, then it's past time for a new standard, one that will be recognized and enforced - not time for innuendo that the software is poorly written or needs more testing.
As a former government engineer, I can tell you we lived and died by the spec. If the hardware didn't pass the test as per the mil spec, we didn't say "oh just accept it anyway" - we failed the hardware and sent it back. We didn't tweak the software so it would run, we didn't blame the programmer, we failed the unit. Period.
If RayMarine implemented a 'feature' that requires or restricts certain characters in a waypoint name, and that's not part of the NMEA spec then RayMarine is at fault here, not GPSNavX. If RayMarine doesn't accept valid NMEA sentences sent to it, then it's at fault. It's impossible to test against every single device out there that supports NMEA, and impossible to tweak software to accommodate all the various units out there. That's what a standard is for, and if it's not used correctly then it's not the standard's fault, it's the hardware. If there's a "gaggle" of devices out there that claim NMEA support but won't work with other NMEA devices, then it's past time for a new standard, one that will be recognized and enforced - not time for innuendo that the software is poorly written or needs more testing.